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President Obama’s handling of Syria over the last several months has suggested that we are witnessing Jimmy Carter’s second term. Yet every so often there are other items in the news which suggest that we might as well be in 1978 all over again. Witness: the Peace App.

Give Peace A Chance (Only 2.99!)

The Peace App is pretty much what you might guess: a “powerful platform for connecting and sharing thoughts and intentions. Based on the premise that the thoughts, feelings, actions and prayers of individuals can collectively create a larger social atmosphere and ‘collective consciousness,’ The Peace App features a variety of methods and activities including Yoga, Meditation, Intentional Thought, Prayer and Movement.” All on your iPhone!

The Peace App’s website is even more clichéd, featuring inspiring peace quotes from Martin Luther King, Jimi Hendrix, Albert Einstein, and, of course, JFK, who no doubt learned a thing or two about peace when he was fighting in World War II, facing off against the Russians in Cuba, and inserting America into the Vietnam war.

But these are quibbles. The big selling point of the Peace App is that it combines the ancient power of meditation with the modern power of mobile technology. Thanks to all of the people across the globe who are using it, joining together, as the programmers put it, in “collective, conscious intention for peace, peace will vibrate on a larger scale, rippling from self, community, societies, across our beautiful planet.” The Peace App asks, “If our thoughts create reality, can we collectively create more peace through conscious intentions for peace?”

Did we say “selling point”? But of course. As everyone from Sun Tzu to George W. Bush could tell you, peace comes at a cost. In the case of the Peace App, that would be $2.99.